Metes and bounds vs rectangular survey
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A Location Survey (called a "lay-out") establishes the position on the ground of proposed construction. A Route Survey describes a center line and related widths and distances. A Standard Land Survey is only concerned with boundary lines. Sometimes there is a separate Mortgage Loan Survey that inspects the parcel for uses and obvious superior encumbrances. Land Title Surveys focus on insuring title to a parcel and reference all encumbrances such as easements or improvements. In the entire land survey system there were instances of fraud or sloppy surveying that created numerous legal issues and boundary disputes.
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The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 granted railroads public lands in exchange for construction. Ground markers (monumentation) provided the precise locations of points and lines. In some states there are references to other units such as varas, labors, leagues, rods, poles, perchs, chains, and links. A mile is 5,280 feet and an acre is 43,560 square feet. 36 sections (six miles square) equal a Township further located with additional descriptors omitted here in the interest of brevity. The Public Land Survey System in shorthand fashion created numbered rectangular grids of one square mile each (a "section" of 640 acres) from a Base Line (a parallel of latitude) and Principal Meridian (a north-south line). Of course natural makers disappeared (for example, "a large Hickory tree") and various difficulties caused the development of the more precise Public Land Survey System. It used natural landmarks and distances with simple compass headings of north, south, east, and west. Many earliest land surveys followed a metes-and-bounds system adapted from England.